Editorials
People of Good Faith
Volume 28 Issue 7, 8 & 9 | Posted: September 18, 2014
On Monday August 11, I attended a presentation by Rev. Dr. Larry Scott at First Metropolitan United Church in Victoria on the extensive background to the Gaza question and the entire history of the Israeli-Palestine war. It was his second presentation that day and both sessions were packed. Such is the interest in the current issue and the public need to understand better the whole situation.
In that vein, in this issue we have added pages and put together a special section on the question. Two issues ago ICN featured a piece by Masin Al Nahawi, a Palestinian refugee of Syrian descent. In response to that article there have been letters and other events as outlined in an editorial in the last issue.
On Monday August 11, I attended a presentation by Rev. Dr. Larry Scott at First Metropolitan United Church in Victoria on the extensive background to the Gaza question and the entire history of the Israeli-Palestine war. It was his second presentation that day and both sessions were packed. Such is the interest in the current issue and the public need to understand better the whole situation.
In that vein, in this issue we have added pages and put together a special section on the question. Two issues ago ICN featured a piece by Masin Al Nahawi, a Palestinian refugee of Syrian descent. In response to that article there have been letters and other events as outlined in an editorial in the last issue.
I was part of a presentation to the local Member of Parliament on the issue of Canada and specific political parties shifting attitude to the conflict. It allowed an excellent discussion, during which it was revealed that a progressive Jewish group had been in to speak with the MP as well.
The local Conservative Synagogue in Victoria has had to deal with this development, as evidenced by the letter from the rabbi on the matter reprinted on the letters page (Page 5).
Larry Scott’s comprehensive presentation on the history of the conflict was not the first such one I have attended sponsored by the United Church of Canada, which has a long history of examining and responding to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank regions of Israel. A few years ago I accompanied Rev. Clint Mooney in Calgary to a similar presentation.
Clint has a long history of involvement in Christian – Jewish dialogue and Muslim – Christian discussion as well. His letter is also on page five and the article he refers to on forced Jewish migration is part of our overall six-page section. It is the 2002 study by Dr. Ada Aharoni of the Neaman Institute in Haifa, Israel.
Initially ICN was approached by Dr. Sophie Shulman who wished to write a counter point article to Masin Al Nahawi’s original examination of Zionist strategy for Palestinians in Israel. It was her initiative that gave rise to the development of the special section and she should be given credit for such. Unfortunately only an excerpt of her work is able to be included here on page six, where it starts off the feature theme.
The centrepiece of the section is the carefully worded and extensive reflection by American Jesuit Father Joseph E. Mulligan based on his 2008 visit to the Jerusalem Holocaust Memorial and the questions it raised about the current situation.
Island Catholic News has previously featured writing on a similar visit taken by United Church clergyman Dale Perkins in more recent years.
Dale’s articles prompted similar heated discussion including an earlier Clint Mooney letter. That occasion caused Clint to research Dr. Aharoni’s work which he had discovered in his previously mentioned interfaith dialogue work for the United Church of Canada over a number of decades.
ICN is committed to this developmental process of serious discussion of people of good faith, with an unflinching yet respectful attitude of looking at the whole situation from many angles, not just the protagonists perspective but also objective observers whose faith perspective can add a fresh dimension to the process which in hope and faith can make a possible difference.